Mirrored surfaces for the presentation of art and advertising messages are well known. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 809,698, issued to Kelly, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,849,709 issued to Colberg. Likewise, curved mirrors containing message information are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 1,311,253, as well as in my previously filed application Ser. No. 07/428,637, now abandoned, and my currently pending application Ser. No. 07/638,701. Curved mirrors, in particular, offer optical properties which impart an attractive, often striking appearance to a message applied thereto.
Recently, I began experimentation with and production of an improved mirror display, comprising a concave mirrored acrylic surface, to which I attached a convex clear acrylic surface of matching diameter and sphere. The two pieces, when assembled, formed an enclosure having a lens-like cross section. An opaque emblem, comprising an advertising logo, message, or the like, is applied to the outer convex surface of the clear acrylic surface. A contrasting symbol, optically reversed, is applied to the opposite, concave side of the clear acrylic surface, in approximate registration with the first emblem applied to the outer convex surface, so that the reversed emblem on the convex side of the clear acrylic is obscured from direct view by an observer seeing the convex side of the clear acrylic surface. The reversed image on the concave side of the clear acrylic is reflected by the concave mirrored acrylic surface of the assembly.
In this fashion, the reversed image, when again reversed by the optics of the concave mirror, appears in proper perspective to the observer viewing the entire assembly from the "front", that being the clear acrylic side of the device. The observer then sees both the first emblem, directly, and the second emblem, reflected. The visual effect is quite striking.
While the foregoing article of manufacture was acceptable in many ways, it had a number of limitations. First, the use of identical spherical sections for the concave mirrored portion and the convex clear portion limited the size of a reflected image. It was impossible for the reflected image to be made to appear substantially larger or smaller than the direct image. In addition, the original assembly was difficult to manufacture, in that the manufacturing process for the spherical sections of acrylic lacked sufficient precision to ensure a precise alignment of the edges of the two spherical sections, when assembled. This misalignment dictated the use of large amounts of adhesive, and a rather unsightly clamping ring around the entire perimeter of the completed assembly.
The present invention eliminates the foregoing problems, and produces a greatly improved visual effect.